Curiouser and Curiouser!

I've spent the last two days in a Sherlockian haze, researching poisons and train timetables and Irish law enforcement, only rarely remembering to eat or drink or use the facilities, and listening to Poe's album Haunted on obsessive repeat. I'm about five thousand words in, and I think I might actually collapse before I make it to six thousand.

I'm having so much fucking fun writing this fic, I can't even tell you.

It's almost absurdly dark; probably the most disturbing thing I've ever written. But it's funny how easy it is to forget that while you're writing, to get caught up in the mind of the character who thinks all this is perfectly normal, really, you're just being squeamish and unforgivably bourgeois and then before you know it you're like, hmm, I don't if that murder was graphic enough, maybe I should add some intestines?

So it's been an interesting few days, is what I'm saying. Also: anyone willing to do a read-through and give me a few thoughts? I swear I've kept the intestines to the barest possible minimum.

One of these days I'm going to do a post about my MFA applications and taking the GREs and figuring out what the hell I'm doing with my life, but today is not that day. Today is a day for bloody murder, and occasionally remembering to rehydrate.

I am, as a general rule, not one of those people who gives a crap about what actors are like in real life, but eponymous_rose pointed me toward this today and now that I've watched it about forty-seven times I feel the need to wave my hands at it and say: OH MY GOD HOW CAN TWO HUMAN BEINGS POSSIBLY BE SO ADORABLE. THEY MUST EACH BE HALF-KITTEN. OR HALF-PUPPY. MATT SMITH IS HALF-KITTEN AND KAREN GILLIAN IS HALF-PUPPY AND TOGETHER THEY ARE SO ADORABLE THAT MY EYES BURN.

Anyway. This is a clip from a recent Confidential.

( cut for capslock and the very vaguest of spoilers. )

Yeah, now I'm going to have to go see it again.

No, my friends, I am still here. You have not dreamt me - I am flesh and blood, blood and flesh, true and as real as something which is true, and real. And do not think that because I have not been posting that I have not been here among thee - oh no. I have. I have watched thee from on high (above sea level) and now I have returned to walk amongst thee. And around thee. And occasionally over thee.

Yeah, see, this is why I haven't posted. I'm a lunatic.

I was bumped up to full-time at the bookstore a couple of months ago (I don't think I posted about that. Did I?) and so my life has been rather internet-lite of late. I have kept up with fandom brouhaha (at least, as much as I ever have) and I have been writing fic, though not much and not terribly well. There has been some small amount of REAL LIFE DRAMA, which I may post friends-lockedly later, but first I wanted to say:

I am not dead. I am still working on fic. I enjoy munster cheese. I love you all.

These are the things I wanted to say. Also:

READ CHRISTOPHER MOORE'S NEW BOOK. IT IS AWESOME.
(Buy it at Borders! Yay Borders!)

"They say a good man can't get elected president. I don't believe that. Do you?"
- Leo McGarry, The West Wing

I've got myself all in a tizzy about this employment ad I saw today. A local theatre company is looking for playwrights, and though I am skeptical, I have come to the realization that there is no earthly reason why I shouldn't at least apply. I mean, the idea of actually getting paid to write is...well, you know, tizzy-making. Thing is, they're asking for a writing sample of ten pages or less, and this means I have three problems:

1. Very few things in my theatre portfolio (such as it is) are that short.

2. Everything in my theatre portfolio is at least two years old.

3. I was an idiot two years ago and I hate everything in my theatre portfolio.

and 

4. I haven't written any original work in a VERY LONG TIME, and I think I may have kinda sorta forgotten how.

Think they'd accept macros instead?

In a conversation with Shirtless Irish Houseguest (or Niall, as he prefers to be known) this afternoon, I began to subtly introduce the fact of my insanity. (My policy: start hinting at the crazy as soon as possible. It prevents later messiness.) We were discussing that whole, "What the hell am I going to do after I graduate?" quandary, and I mentioned my rather unhealthy investment in all things film and television, and my not-so-secret ambition to grow up to be Aaron Sorkin, sans shrooms and various other asshattery. (Oh, Sorkin. How the mighty have fallen in mine eyes...)

Where was I? Right. Yes. Well, Niall doesn't really watch much television (though he did know who Aaron Sorkin was, which I admit was something of a turn on), but as we talked about the shows I admire, he pointed out that they varied pretty widely in terms of genre and style. Which...well, maybe. A lot of my favorites are sci fi, but not consistently so. Unsurprisingly, I tend to focus on writers and show runners: Joss Whedon (well, duh), Writer God/Uber Douchebag Sorkin, Rob Thomas, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Brian Fuller, RTD, etc. Looking at that list, one thing becomes clear - I like people who talk fast.

Thinking about these writers and these shows led me to an entirely useless but entertaining meditation on another consistent trend in the shows I love. In each show, there is a character whom I love so dearly, who seems so complete and flawed and staggeringly wonderful that I honestly refuse to admit that they are fictional. There are actors I love and relationships that I love, but this list (ah, there it is - the point of this post) is limited to those characters who utterly enthrall me every moment they're on screen.